How does a developed state, understand the needs of a less developed state, and decide what aid system would be beneficial to its citizens?

All to often, foreign aid to poorer African countries is swallowed up by bureaucratic management, high ranking corruption, and personal greed, despite the fact that many African citizens in many African States, face poverty; starvation; lingering droughts; ethnic cleansing and militant dictatorship on a daily basis.

How should the human race understand and relate to such a complex, grass root survival mechanism that is inherited to such natives? Are we being too presumptuous by spending money that amounts to nothing, or are we looking in the wrong direction?

TED Conversations Archives

We’ve spent three years sharing Ideas, Debates and Questions — and learned a lot.

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